HoneyWords for some sweet kids at El Ayudante

The HoneyWord Bible is now in the El Ayudante Child Protection Center Library in Nicaragua. The director there, Bill Cox, who is a native Tennessee man, was thrilled to learn about it and is excited for the 30 children who live there to be able to use it as they are learning the english language everyday. I hope to go back in the near future with a spanish translated version for them too.
I would have to say one of my favorite highlights of the mission trip was being a part of the El Ayudante children's "picking out the clothes" we brought them.
Meet my little friend, Winkler, here. He chose the random ANT shirt and was so cute discovering that it made me so happy to see him choose it!
The week before we left on the trip our team leader received an email from Bill asking if we could bring clothes for the kids, ages and sizes 5-17! It just so happened that Kids Clothes Connection in Auburn had just finished their semi annual sale and had lots of leftovers that they wanted to donate to a "special" organization. The owners go to our church and after I made a quick call to them upon receiving the email, they told me they had been hoping to be able to give to some new charity this year besides the regulars that they give to. They had no idea we were needing them for the mission trip so the timing was very perfectly God's timing!
Someone living here in Auburn put that shirt in the Kids Clothes Connection sale and it did not sale here but in Nicaragua it sold for big smiles and 1 happy sugar ant and 1 happy fire ant who found it in the warehouse the week before we left.
Here's a new happy Auburn fan that lives in Nicaragua!
We laid out all the clothes in stacks of little girls, big girls, little boys and then big boys in a spare bunk room before they let all the kids come over in small groups to pick out their choices. To them is was like an afternoon shopping spree without needing money. To us it was like Christmas morning watching them delight over new things.
This precious little girl squealed with delight over her new dress. (I added the ribbon to it just before we packed all these clothes so it stood out to me when I saw her pick that dress)
This is little Jessica. She stole my heart for sure. Her mother died unexpectantly several years ago and there is a couple in Atlanta trying to adopt her and an older sister right now. Please pray that the adoption process will go smoothly for little Jessica and her older sister.
This scene will be etched in my mind for a long time. I have never seen such precious little girls be so excited over used clothing. They were chattering up a storm as they walked back to their living quarters with a new red bag filled with several new outfits, a new purse, some play fingernail polish, sunglasses, and a new bandana. Oh - one more thing, please notice the ribbons in each one's hair -those were some of my Jessica's leftover ribbons from her childhood :)
I have a lump in my throat just writing this post.

Ants in Your Pants!

A happy heart makes the face cheerful... (Proverbs 15:13) and so does a little game of ants in the pants!




"The most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed."

Proverbs 6:6

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise!
When we were asked to bring a lesson to the children that would help them become good leaders in their communities, we started searching for a theme that had not been done by numerous other mission teams along the way. Proverbs 6:6 is the only verse in the Bible about ants and after finding on the internet a small lesson on it, we made it become our own.
Each of us became a different ant (learning all about ants from my pest control as we planned)and we put on a small skit showing how all the different ants help each other at all times without being told to. Ants are not lazy and they work hard everyday to provide and find food for each other. We tried to emphasize that the ants work together both in the physical world and the spiritual world (one should go after their spiritual food without being told to etc.).

the queen ant is the only one who lays eggs, of which Evelyn laid an egg or two near the children :)


A funny comment from the littlest ones we saw on our first day was when Cissy, our Soldier Ant marched in during our skit, a little boy yelled out "oh, she bites"! That very afternoon at another elementary school, the kids all saluted Cissy as she marched in!

Our fire ant had a great time squirting the kids with water! Madge found this inflatable fire extinguisher online. How cute is that?

I was the sugar ant and they all wanted to taste my plastic lollipops! and the children constantly touched my apron to see if the ones on there were real. We did give each child lollipops in their red bags at the end of the VBS :)


The leaf cutter ant , Jean, snipped away at her leaves during our skit :)


One thing for sure, our ant group had a ball preparing this VBS and giving it. There was a carpenter ant, helper ants, and a mama ant too but I did not get any close up pictures of those. We saved the crazy ant for last each time and the kids loved Lisa going crazy shaking pom poms throwing little balls and giving high fives etc...

The Ants Go Marching into Nicaragua Schools and Churches

Here are the 11 ladies of our Ant VBS team all ready to go! See if you can tell what kind of ant each one of us is by our outfits :) (I'll give you close ups later in the blog)
We went to 6 different places and gave Bible Schools to 500+ children in 5 days.
We are doing the hokey pokey in spanish here :)
To love what you do and feel that it matters -how could anything be more fun?
one of my many sweethearts in Nicaragua-seriously this little guy I would have brought home if I could.
They all loved making ant headbands and egg carton ants to take home
Singing with wax paper and combs was enjoyed by all - especially the older boys!
We had 3-4 Nicaraguan guys that went with us every day and we could not have done it without them. They spoke both languages and were so loving to all the kids. They became our best buddies. This is "Nestor" helping here.
I have dozens of pictures of the kids but as I look back through them I am so pleased with the elementary and preteen age boys liking our theme and activities.
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take...but by the moments that take your breath away!"
Playing with the stuffed ants and the parachute was a favorite as was...
"ant, ant, lazybones" (same as duck, duck, goose) and my favorite was...
Ants in the pants! All ages loved this-will share more pictures later on this one!
One little preschool we went to fed the 25 kids lunch and this woman prepared it as we played with the kids. She cooked oil and rice and noodles over a small fire in a kettle pot and then added a very small dab of tomatoe sauce on each serving in the bowls. (we painted t-shirts with the kids here and hung them on a barbed wire to dry)
I was quickly reminded how much I have to be thankful for at the sight of this.
The children loved the sunglasses and red bags we bought them.

Thank you for praying for me during this week I went to Nicaragua. My heart is overflowing with blessings from this experience. I have more to tell and hopefully can show you in pictures some very special moments we had in Leon, Nicaragua.

Clarification

After reading back thru the post showing and telling about our sleeping quarters, I feel I must clarify one thing === that the men stayed on the left side with a concrete wall that separated them from us (the women) on the right side of the building!

El Ayudante, Nicaragua- our home away from home

When we first arrived at El Ayudante it was 10:30 p.m. and after a long day of traveling, this was a sight for sore eyes. Our meeting hut was all lit up to welcome us-it is stationed between the 2 sleeping dorms we stayed in = sweet, huh?
Here it is in the daylight-it had 19 rocking chairs for our 19 team members
we were there in the hottest, dryest season but even then the grounds were beautiful and perfectly manicured. We had most of our team devotionals here and it was such a peaceful setting to begin and end our busy days.


To tell you about our transportation, I will begin by saying we did not travel in cars!

This flatbed truck was my favorite mode of transportaion!
Our VBS team had so much fun riding down dirty country roads singing songs and hymns before we were greeted by 100+ children most days! The scenery from this view point was priceless.
There were days when we had to ride the school bus which was a lot hotter but we spread out and made the most of those rides too.
And then there were several VBS schools where we (those that were able) walked from El Ayudante. If I did not wear my tennis shoes, here's what happened!

Here is Madge at the main building on the complex where we met before meals and kept our trunks.
Each day we had to prepare our 3 trunks to carry our craft supplies, game equipment, and bags for the kids to take their things home in.
In the background you will see where we ate our meals.
There were 4 cooks who kept us well fed and became our good friends. EVERY meal we had fresh pineapple, canteloupe, and watermelon....and every lunch and supper we had some sort of rice!
Now don't be fooled by the cereal box and bananas in this picture :) Betty bought her own cereal from home (even though there was no milk) and she bought her own banana the last day when we went downtown to tour the area. Everyday she longed for a banana grown from the region. It was a luxury for Betty that morning to have her dry cereal and banana! Honestly though, breakfast was a treat each day=we had omelettes, french toast, pancakes and eggs and bacon and toast!

Our sleeping quarters was really nice with the exception of no airconditioning in our building. The men stayed on the left side and the 7 youngest women on the right side.
We all had a bottom bunk and used the top one for our "stuff"! And we each had our own personal oscillating fan at the head of our bed! We had some funny nights with iguanna lizzards running around inside, a bird we caught in a ziploc bag one night, and of course lots of ANTS in the bathroom area!
The 5 oldest women on our team ranked the only air conditioned building on the complex. THEY called it "the old folks home"! Two of our younger ladies ended up going over there doubling up with those ladies just before bedtime so they could get some sleep in some cool air. I was happy to stay put with my big ole fan at my head.
The bathrooms were like living in a college dorm- 4 showers and 4 toilet stalls and 4 sinks! Not bad for 7 women.
Living like this for a week was hardly enough sacrifice for the blessings I am going to share with you later in the blog. I can't wait to tell you all about the ant theme and how much the children liked it. The best is yet to come in pictures. Get ready for me to introduce you to the most adorable children in Nicaragua...around 550 of them!!!